I’m a complete sucker for cookbooks. I have more than I will ever make use of but I love browsing the cookbook section of bookstores and like you take favourites to bed and read them like novels. I particularly love a cookbook that creates a sense of place and transports you into a different world
That does happen doesn't it. I think you really understand a culture while travelling thought its food and cookbooks are a gateway - which is lovely while you're tucked under the covers.
Oh wow, Sally - that sounds totally amazing! I love finding things in that way - I might just have to start hanging out even more in secondhand bookshops! I think you've started something here.....! 🤔
Truly a wonderful post! I'm a mix, I'm crazy about cookbooks but I also cook without recipes. My husband always asks me to write my recipe but I always say: "no problem, it's all in my head" but he knows that it will be almost impossible to have the same results next time 🤣🤣.
I have many cookbooks that I check only a few times, sometimes I use them to get inspiration by looking at the pics and trying to recreate the dish without reading the recipe. If a book will be published for charity I know that I will put it in my shopping bag immediately.
My favorites are: a book of typical Bolognese recipes that my nan gave to me, I loved the Cook for Syria project the recipes are fantastic, Cake Book made by Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube because I bought it at CupcakeJemma shop and she signed my copy.
I also love two books that my husband gave to me about the medieval recipes and one about the influence of the invasion on foods and recipes.
And the last but not the least category for me is the cooking diary where a chef or person talks about their life or experiences and also shares recipes or descriptions of dishes in the book like: The life and death of perfectionist in haute cuisine, or the books by Anthony Bourdain and Reinventing food Ferran Adrià.
I now want to come and browse through your whole collection. Your eclectic sample is so tempting especially the Medieval recipes and the invasion one - FASCINATING.
Without the invasions the foods and the recipes in Italy would been so different today, also made me understand that in Italy sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. The medieval food it’s really cool was based on the idea that it must have been beautiful to look at and who cares if wasn’t so good.
U know even if I never read it but I think I will do it soon as possible, Sicily and Leopard are the perfect examples of what we changed in Italy thanks to the invasions, even if I can imagine that people from that era wasn’t so happy to see boats and boats full of Arabian or Norsemen people ready to plunder and destroy cities and start very long wars.
Sicily was invaded by Arabian, Norsemen, Spanish, Greeks and really a lot of other countries but Arabian influenced more their cooking.
Thanks to them in Sicily u can find pistachios, almonds, cane sugar, lemon, bitter orange, cous cous, marzipan, it is said that they initially created the recipe for the arancini but an Italian improved the recipe by breading the stuffed rice balls and frying them; also cassata have a really long story.
And if u check the recipe for the “Leopard timballo” looks more like a British recipe instead of an Italian one, in Italy we have a lot of timballo’s recipe but normally are all made with pasta.
Ha! The bit about your husband wanting you to write it down is very relatable. My wife will look mournful after a good off-the-cuff meal and say “we’ll never have this again, will we?” So sometimes I humor her and do write them down 😂
He said the same thing like: “this was really good could u recreate it another time or it’s a unique piece?” The problem it’s that I don’t take the weight of ingredients I just try and I see if it could works. So it’s really difficult write it down like a normal recipe.
I love this. My cookery book collection is still small - about 10. I bought my first cook book last year when I went to Israel and fell in love with the food. I really like listening to Nigel slater’s audiobooks in bed at night. I’ve screenshoted a few of your cookbook recommendations 🧡
Thank you. I've only got a couple of Nigel Slater's books but the pages are splattered as used so much. You've got such a wonderful journey ahead of you putting together a collection - It's really exciting :)
Such a relatable post! Your cookbook shelves look just like my cookbook shelves! I will soon be facing the same dilemma you faced. Each time I open one of my beloved books I ask myself whether it will come to Portugal, be kept in storage, or be given away, and I try to imagine how bereft I will feel without it. I’m trying to curb my desire to buy any more books. However, a look at your shelves and reading your recommendations gave me some new titles for my wish list. Though not the same, I have a few hundred cookbooks on Kindle. I buy them when they go on sale (sometimes as low as $1.99 in the daily deals). They are handy when I’m traveling and also provide an opportunity to try out a book before buying a physical copy. Looking forward to more of your thoughts and recommendations about cookbooks, which are a source of joy.
Thank you Alison. Interesting about having so many on Kindle. I only read fiction on Kindle now but your comment made me think about whether I'd use cookbooks that way. I don't know why the physical copy is so important but I just love using them. A bit inconvenient! I like your sorting process. How bereft will you feel without each one - such a good litmus test.
I am always lurking in charity shops looking for books and blue and white crockery. National Trust second hand book shops are often good for that era too.
I love looking at other people’s cookbook shelves. I have some of the Sainsbury’s little books and have found more in charity shops where I always snap them up. Josceline Dimbleby’s Christmas Cooking is well used each year
I haven’t thought of looking there. There’s something about my original hoard (like my Face magazines that my Mum gave away)! but would love to replace a few. They don’t take up much room do they ?😉
I try not to buy anything new these days but avoid looking at the cookery book sections as I’m trying not to add to my collection again (this doesn’t always work!) We have an Oxfam book shop and a lovely National Trust one near us. Might take a wander!
As I browse your bookshelves I want to immediately head over to Waterstones and order something. I too have a bookshelf dedicated to cookbooks, I have a rule that if it can't fit on the shelf then I have to fid room to fit it in by getting rid of something else. But it is getting harder. The sentimental ones that I can not drag myself away from even though I have no need for them now, like the River Cottage that has taught me everything from keeping chickens and pigs to skinning rabbits & that was before the recipes.
I have sneakily been sourcing signed copies of books as I feel if they are signed I have an added reason to keep them even if I am no longer reading it, it seems more personal.
& food magazines - OMG - I fear that one day I will go missing only to be found buried under a pile of Olive, Delicious & Waitrose magazines. At least the pages will taste good.
I’m a complete sucker for cookbooks. I have more than I will ever make use of but I love browsing the cookbook section of bookstores and like you take favourites to bed and read them like novels. I particularly love a cookbook that creates a sense of place and transports you into a different world
That does happen doesn't it. I think you really understand a culture while travelling thought its food and cookbooks are a gateway - which is lovely while you're tucked under the covers.
A mouth-watering post, Sally! I love my (small) collection of cookery books, but the ones I covet are Mum's handwritten family ones - so very special.
Those are really very special. I love when I find something handwritten slipped into an old cookbook.
Oh wow, Sally - that sounds totally amazing! I love finding things in that way - I might just have to start hanging out even more in secondhand bookshops! I think you've started something here.....! 🤔
Truly a wonderful post! I'm a mix, I'm crazy about cookbooks but I also cook without recipes. My husband always asks me to write my recipe but I always say: "no problem, it's all in my head" but he knows that it will be almost impossible to have the same results next time 🤣🤣.
I have many cookbooks that I check only a few times, sometimes I use them to get inspiration by looking at the pics and trying to recreate the dish without reading the recipe. If a book will be published for charity I know that I will put it in my shopping bag immediately.
My favorites are: a book of typical Bolognese recipes that my nan gave to me, I loved the Cook for Syria project the recipes are fantastic, Cake Book made by Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube because I bought it at CupcakeJemma shop and she signed my copy.
I also love two books that my husband gave to me about the medieval recipes and one about the influence of the invasion on foods and recipes.
And the last but not the least category for me is the cooking diary where a chef or person talks about their life or experiences and also shares recipes or descriptions of dishes in the book like: The life and death of perfectionist in haute cuisine, or the books by Anthony Bourdain and Reinventing food Ferran Adrià.
I now want to come and browse through your whole collection. Your eclectic sample is so tempting especially the Medieval recipes and the invasion one - FASCINATING.
Without the invasions the foods and the recipes in Italy would been so different today, also made me understand that in Italy sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. The medieval food it’s really cool was based on the idea that it must have been beautiful to look at and who cares if wasn’t so good.
Have you read The Leopard by Tomasi do Lampedusa? Set in Sicily the 1860s and about the aristocracy, the description of food is extraordinary
U know even if I never read it but I think I will do it soon as possible, Sicily and Leopard are the perfect examples of what we changed in Italy thanks to the invasions, even if I can imagine that people from that era wasn’t so happy to see boats and boats full of Arabian or Norsemen people ready to plunder and destroy cities and start very long wars.
Sicily was invaded by Arabian, Norsemen, Spanish, Greeks and really a lot of other countries but Arabian influenced more their cooking.
Thanks to them in Sicily u can find pistachios, almonds, cane sugar, lemon, bitter orange, cous cous, marzipan, it is said that they initially created the recipe for the arancini but an Italian improved the recipe by breading the stuffed rice balls and frying them; also cassata have a really long story.
And if u check the recipe for the “Leopard timballo” looks more like a British recipe instead of an Italian one, in Italy we have a lot of timballo’s recipe but normally are all made with pasta.
Ha! The bit about your husband wanting you to write it down is very relatable. My wife will look mournful after a good off-the-cuff meal and say “we’ll never have this again, will we?” So sometimes I humor her and do write them down 😂
He said the same thing like: “this was really good could u recreate it another time or it’s a unique piece?” The problem it’s that I don’t take the weight of ingredients I just try and I see if it could works. So it’s really difficult write it down like a normal recipe.
Yes exactly! More like noting a list of ingredients as an idea...
HA! I see what you mean! YA! you wrote about it toooooo! Go you, whats your top 5?
That's for another post!
Wow, Sally, really interesting and useful. And a perfect execution of the assignment. A+
How really very kind of you Jack. Thank you
I love this. My cookery book collection is still small - about 10. I bought my first cook book last year when I went to Israel and fell in love with the food. I really like listening to Nigel slater’s audiobooks in bed at night. I’ve screenshoted a few of your cookbook recommendations 🧡
Thank you. I've only got a couple of Nigel Slater's books but the pages are splattered as used so much. You've got such a wonderful journey ahead of you putting together a collection - It's really exciting :)
Such a relatable post! Your cookbook shelves look just like my cookbook shelves! I will soon be facing the same dilemma you faced. Each time I open one of my beloved books I ask myself whether it will come to Portugal, be kept in storage, or be given away, and I try to imagine how bereft I will feel without it. I’m trying to curb my desire to buy any more books. However, a look at your shelves and reading your recommendations gave me some new titles for my wish list. Though not the same, I have a few hundred cookbooks on Kindle. I buy them when they go on sale (sometimes as low as $1.99 in the daily deals). They are handy when I’m traveling and also provide an opportunity to try out a book before buying a physical copy. Looking forward to more of your thoughts and recommendations about cookbooks, which are a source of joy.
Thank you Alison. Interesting about having so many on Kindle. I only read fiction on Kindle now but your comment made me think about whether I'd use cookbooks that way. I don't know why the physical copy is so important but I just love using them. A bit inconvenient! I like your sorting process. How bereft will you feel without each one - such a good litmus test.
I sometimes sample a kindle version from my library but somehow can’t warm up to cookbooks in e-versions! I sort of wish I could.
More than any other books, cookbooks seem so tactile. Part manual, part treasured object.
I am always lurking in charity shops looking for books and blue and white crockery. National Trust second hand book shops are often good for that era too.
Oh they are wonderful places aren't they - we have one near us at Lydford Gorge and I can't resist glancing round the shelves when I'm nearby.
I love looking at other people’s cookbook shelves. I have some of the Sainsbury’s little books and have found more in charity shops where I always snap them up. Josceline Dimbleby’s Christmas Cooking is well used each year
I haven’t thought of looking there. There’s something about my original hoard (like my Face magazines that my Mum gave away)! but would love to replace a few. They don’t take up much room do they ?😉
I try not to buy anything new these days but avoid looking at the cookery book sections as I’m trying not to add to my collection again (this doesn’t always work!) We have an Oxfam book shop and a lovely National Trust one near us. Might take a wander!
As I browse your bookshelves I want to immediately head over to Waterstones and order something. I too have a bookshelf dedicated to cookbooks, I have a rule that if it can't fit on the shelf then I have to fid room to fit it in by getting rid of something else. But it is getting harder. The sentimental ones that I can not drag myself away from even though I have no need for them now, like the River Cottage that has taught me everything from keeping chickens and pigs to skinning rabbits & that was before the recipes.
I have sneakily been sourcing signed copies of books as I feel if they are signed I have an added reason to keep them even if I am no longer reading it, it seems more personal.
& food magazines - OMG - I fear that one day I will go missing only to be found buried under a pile of Olive, Delicious & Waitrose magazines. At least the pages will taste good.
I love this post. I never really meant to collect cookbooks, but somehow it happened.
Seeing your shelves I just want to pull up a chair and dive in!